[G]Deck Control

[TribalTrouble]

Deck Control Guide

Note: I will be using the term "The Abyss" for where cards go when they are discarded/killed/destroyed/etc. (Thanks WVM2 for the name!)

Note2: Pillars can also stand for immolation/nova/etc. basically w/e you use for quanta generation is called pillars in this guide.

Note3: These are all guidelines, guidelines here may be broken at any time depending on the situation but you will require experience to know when to break a guideline.

One Very important aspect of Elements is Deck Control. This involves knowing what cards you have in your deck, how many of them are left in your deck and, where they are located in your deck.

I know exactly what some people are going to be saying right now, so I’ll address it immediately: “The deck is shuffled, how do I know where my cards are?”  I’ll answer by stating the contra positive.  You know where cards are located in your deck by knowing where they aren’t (i.e., The Abyss).  So, following this logic, as you get closer and closer to having only 0 cards, you gain more and more control over your deck.  That is, assuming you have been keeping track of your deck.  This leads to my first big bullet point regarding deck control.

Know What Cards Are Left In Your Deck

It is important that you always know what cards are in your deck at all times.  One thing that helps me keep track of my deck is by playing meticulously.  When  I play my cards, I make sure that I recognize which cards have been added to The Abyss and which are left in my deck.  If you can’t keep track of them all, then start by taking baby steps. Have you played your New Rare Weapon you got from the 500 point quest? Out of those 6 Dragons in your deck, how many have you played? Keeping track of your decks Best cards is the first step to controlling your deck.

Knowing your draw deck composition is important when playing cards that draw other cards. If you have only 10 cards left, just, please, please do not play that precognition or use that hourglass. It may gain you one more card in your hand but if you have been keeping track of your deck you would know that all that is left there is pillars and one chrysaora. The chrysaora will only be able to increase poison by 8-9 at best(and that is just if you have the quanta and are able to draw the chrysaora first thing). It is unlikely for that to be worth the one turn closer to decking out when you only have 5 cards left.

Examples

Lets say you are using this deck:

by tribaltrouble

Hover over cards for details, click for permalink

Deck import code : [Select]

4sj 4sj 4vc 4vc 4ve 4ve 4ve 4ve 4vh 4vh 4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vl 4vl 4vl 4vm 4vm 50u 50u 55q 595 5f6 5i5 5og 61q 8pj

Now, you need to keep track of cards in you deck because lets say you are versing a gravity deck and draw 2 novas 4 pendulums and an Abomination. Then you want to save the novas for when you draw a 2 cost card of a non-entropy element so your opponent can't waste your novas entirely with a black hole. This is, however, one of the more complicated decks to try to remember what cards you have since they are all so different. There are many ways to do this but what I would do is:

1) Put Pendulums/pillars/Marks and Novas together in my head as "No-Cost Quantum generators" 12 cards done leaving 18 more to categorize.
2) Put Lycanthropes and Abominations together in my head as "Entropy Attack Creatures"(Used only for their attack stats) 11 cards left!
3) Put Fallen Elf, Momentum, and fog shield together as "Back-Up Cards"(There for helping Entropy Attack to get past anything the opponent sends out) Only 7 cards left!
4) Put Discord, Deflagration, Basilisk Blood, Chrysaora, and Lightning together as "Rage-Quit Cards" (These cause your opponent to rage quit often )
5)Profit.

Now let's say you are using The Light unupped ai3 grinder

Code: [Select]

5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5la 5la 5la 5lb 5lb 5lb 5lb 5lb 5lb 5lf 5lf 5lf 5lf 5lf 5lfThis deck is based around powering up Pegasi with blessing and then diving them for a huge amount of fast damage for a relatively fast ai3 grinder. The Pegasi are what one may call the key cards or stars of the deck. The dragons are there for some extra power so I consider them to be the "back up" of the deck. The Pillars are once again the quanta generators. The Blessings are mainly there to power up the pegasi for extra damage so I'll call these the "power up" of the deck.

Note: There are many ways to organize decks, as you can see here my ways to organize decks already changed just from doing 2 different decks. Figure out what works for you in your deck! Remember these are just examples, there is no law stating that these methods of organizing must be followed, they are only there to give you ideas for how to organize your own deck!

Now let us move on to the good old classic Shrieker Rush (ai3 grinder)

Code: [Select]

4t4 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 590 590 590 590 590 590 591 591 591 591 591 591For this deck you once again have a star, or in this case, stars, of the deck. The shriekers and graboids. They pack a hard and fast punch to the opponent. The pillars are well, pillars; not much else to say other than what I've said already. The short sword is an interesting part of the deck and I would consider it to be an extra attacker. It can keep a sundial from negating you from doing any damage while your creatures wait a turn. The weapon can turn out to be a key card so if nothing else keep track of it as well as the graboids and shriekers. This deck almost requires that you keep deck control.


Will add more examples in time. For now, I'm just glad I got the basic start of the guide done in 5 hours lol.
Update: Added 2 more examples(Thursday, August 18th, 2011) I am planning on adding a ghostmare deck next with a guide to go along with it. Deck Control of your own deck is nice and all but when you can keep control of both your's and your opponents', well then you might as well be a master of time already

[Rastafla]

Not really sure that this constitutes a guide yet. Suggest more ways of how to enable people to remember, currently its just one way which is your way and I couldn't possibly do it that way. I personally keeps a solid count of every card in my mind. An elements deck rarely have many different cards so to me its REALLY easy to know whats left, comparing an elements deck to a regular "4colors times 13cards at a total deck of 52" is childs play.

To me its much more important to keep track of what the opponent have played. (FGs) To me my own deck is always known at all times. Once or twice in a 1000 games i might forget one card but generally no. Too few cards to mess it up.

[Sh00pdaWoop]

Indeed, remembering what cards you have in your deck is important.  Like the time I was using a deck that had 6 creatures for damage (and nothing else).  I got down to my last six cards, and knew exactly what all of them were.  My creatures.  I saved enough quanta to play them because I knew they were coming and somehow managed to win.  Okay, so that's not exactly likely and you would usually die if something like that happened, but...it happened to me.

Anyway, with certain decks knowing which cards are left is not particularly important, as with certain decks you just play everything you have the quanta for and don't worry about the consequences, but in general it is best to know approximately what you have left in your deck, and if you have a high probability of drawing something with 5 cost that is an important card, you might want to save quanta for it instead of playing cheaper creatures and running out of quanta.

TL;DR:  Great guide, and an excellent strategy for newbies and pros alike.

[TribalTrouble]

Not really sure that this constitutes a guide yet. Suggest more ways of how to enable people to remember, currently its just one way which is your way and I couldn't possibly do it that way. I personally keeps a solid count of every card in my mind. An elements deck rarely have many different cards so to me its REALLY easy to know whats left, comparing an elements deck to a regular "4colors times 13cards at a total deck of 52" is childs play.

To me its much more important to keep track of what the opponent have played. (FGs) To me my own deck is always known at all times. Once or twice in a 1000 games i might forget one card but generally no. Too few cards to mess it up.

Well, it is meant to be a guide to newer players(like me) that haven't played long enough to remember everything. I myself have been playing for 2-3 weeks now and I still had times where I couldn't remember every card in my deck. Especially if it was a deck that I had found on the forum. I would often wonder and as such I made this guide.

Also, I may consider making a guide to reading your opponent within this or some such thing but I felt like starting with a deck even I would have some trouble with organizing in my mind. It is a deck I've been trying recently so I used my own game experience to figure out which cards would go where. As you get more familiar with a deck, yes, you do get to the point that you don't need this any more but early on you can make some very crucial mistakes by not knowing what is in your deck. For example, you may have 3 steals but not realize you already played 2 since its been a long game in which you didn't think about what cards you already played and you are facing a deck very similar to your own. You don't stop to think and just play that steal with 15 cards left in your deck to steal a pendulum and then your opponent whips out a shield 2 turns later and you wonder where all your steals went...

[TribalTrouble]

Indeed, remembering what cards you have in your deck is important.  Like the time I was using a deck that had 6 creatures for damage (and nothing else).  I got down to my last six cards, and knew exactly what all of them were.  My creatures.  I saved enough quanta to play them because I knew they were coming and somehow managed to win.  Okay, so that's not exactly likely and you would usually die if something like that happened, but...it happened to me.

Anyway, with certain decks knowing which cards are left is not particularly important, as with certain decks you just play everything you have the quanta for and don't worry about the consequences, but in general it is best to know approximately what you have left in your deck, and if you have a high probability of drawing something with 5 cost that is an important card, you might want to save quanta for it instead of playing cheaper creatures and running out of quanta.

TL;DR:  Great guide, and an excellent strategy for newbies and pros alike.

Thanks Sh00PdaWoop! This is exactly the type of situation I was talking about

[Rastafla]

A tip: Never double post replies on a forum.

Unless you actually run out of space. Which is highly unlikely.

[dracomageat]

How does this theory interact with mindgate?
That seems a bit hard to keep track of but it would be interesting to hear and potentially very helpful.

I'm wondering if it would be good to include specifics of how it would help each deck to the examples, just to make the benifits clearer.

[TribalTrouble]

How does this theory interact with mindgate?
That seems a bit hard to keep track of but it would be interesting to hear and potentially very helpful.

I'm wondering if it would be good to include specifics of how it would help each deck to the examples, just to make the benifits clearer.

Sounds like a good idea. I was busy with real life so I couldn't get on the forum for a little while but I should be able to start working on that. Thanks!